Intel's Itanium processors are not a huge success when compared to Intel's Xeon processors, as reported in our Intel Xeon Itanium chips to use same socket news report. The main reason is the price. Intel's Xeon processors are much affordable than the company's Itanium line. And they suit the enterprise level users just fine. Intel is trying to solve the price issue by making it's Xeon and Itanium chips interchangable at the socket level by 2007. It's been also reported by us in our Intel to wait before unleashing 64-bit Prescott that Intel is currently focusing on promoting it's Itanium chips.

Intel will unleash two new Itanium 2 chips at the beginning of next week at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Taiwan. According to sources, the official announcement will be made next Tuesday. Both models will use the Madison codename and has 3MB L2 cache. This time the on-board cache on the newer models has been doubled than the chips' previous versions.

The first microprocessor will be clocked at 1.4Ghz while the other model will be clocked at 1.6Ghz. Both models will feature the same amount of L2 cache. The 1.4Ghz processor will be available in the market right after the official announcement, sources said. This leads us to believe that the retailers might have already received the units. The 1.6Ghz model, however will be available in the market at the end of May, sources close to Intel confirmed.

According to a report by InfoWorld, Intel will release a new dual-processor, codenamed Fanwood by the end of this year. Intel's upcoming Fanwood core chip will use the same design as it's current Madison based chips, said the online publication. The Fanwood processors will be clocked at 1.6Ghz with 3MB L2 cache as well. The lower model of the Fanwood processor, however will be clocked at 1.2Ghz with 3MB L2 cache.

Intel's got quite a few tricks up it's sleeves but the main thing to look forward to will be the steps taken by AMD. While Intel is on a releasing strike, AMD will not be quite. Intel did not comment on the report at press time.